I'm going to continue my post, but this time taking a more cynical and different approach.
As I was reading, I kept noticing that there are no class differences among the people who use technology. Even the students at Fairmont, though they may be in the vocational track, have full access to the technological advances of the times. If the characters aren't "white" --though it's hard to tell their race from Vinge's descriptions --they're certainly "whitened," in terms of technology and the values that "whiteness" prescribes on being a savvy user thereof. Furthermore, when distinctions are made among characters or people, it's between the wearers, and the non-wearers; i.e. the "haves" and "have nots." However, this distinction is not seen as a matter of access, but rather one of agency. Robert, for example, chooses not to wear in the beginning, and when the other characters notice that he's not wearing, they think of it as a personal choice, or a matter of stubbornness, not something for which society has not prepared them.
It might be that Vinge imagines a utopian society where everyone has access to the internet -- as Alyssa mentions -- and this is truly a great thing (in some sense). But here, it has eliminated many distinctions between class and race -- again, also a good thing in many cases. However, I'm wondering if Vinge comments on the utopia of widespread technological access as a good thing, or whether he imagines this future for us to critique it. What might widespread access do for the world? Does it really eliminate racial, ethnic, and class distinctions? And if it does, what are the consequences of that?
Finally, and I think most importantly here, none of his characters interact with people of other "races," though some mention is made of Jin and Miri's relationship. I wonder if this is because he is only writing about the "haves", and the have nots are left out of the situation entirely, and thus have no place in the digital world. However, it could also be that technology has pervaded, and eliminated, the class/race/ethnic boundaries that distinguish access or opportunity.
All in all, I think Vinge opens up the possibility for examining the assumptions of widespread access in his novel, especially given the ideas I stated before about reading ironically. This brings me to the question of, how realistic is this scenario? That is, could it really happen like this, especially by 2025? I don't think so, because even if we do get "smart" contact lenses or things like that, it'll be too expensive even for the middle-class. Look at the iPhone. Though it's come down significantly, it's still a whopping $350.00, which most people I know can't afford (and these are people with "real" jobs). So, my point is, that Vinge's book glosses over the economic issues about access and makes the fantasy only possible for those with 1) the economic means; and 2) the desire to adopt the "white"/bourgeois/etc values that this economic status requires. Now, it may be that this is what will happen, especially at the rate we seem to be going anyway. But I, for one, hope it doesn't, since things keep getting more and more expensive, and less and less personal, at the "benefit" of ease and convenience. In the long run, what do we gain?
I wonder if Vinge is asking this question himself. I hope so.
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Well, here's the deal with the access thing (and good point! Librarians, as you know, are all about the digital divide):
Having not read the book, my guess is that the premise of Vinge's envisioned universe is that the cost of the technology required for 'wearing' has gone down to the point where it IS accessible to the average person. Look at DVD players! My dad purchased his first clunky model for $900 in 1997 (early adoption for the lose!). 11 years later, the high-end ones still cost that much, but you can get a decent portable one for $50. As we build processors more and more efficiently and use fewer and fewer materials to do so, the cost WILL decrease. It will happen, perhaps not as soon as Vinge sets his story, but I bet within our lifetimes there will be affordable smart lenses and implants and such for everyone.
Now, is everyone going to USE them? Maybe not. It sounds like the implants make life EASIER for people, but they are not actively ESSENTIAL for residents of Vinge's universe, so there are going to be a lot of your "non-white" residents of the world who either a) don't want to "wear" (e.g. working class residents of first world countries) or b) are unaware that the technology exists (e.g. residents of developing countries, the people in WV with three heads, etc.) When you write a science fiction novel where your universal premise affects the entirety of the human race, you'd better be DAMN sure the entire human race can plausibly be affected. (This is why, for example, when Arthur C. Clarke writes about 90% of humanity living in a ring in geosynchronous orbit around earth, he sets it in 3001.)
Ultimately, the concept of 'whiteness' to me is more class-based than race-based these days anyway (though, admittedly, I don't live in the Deep South so I could be wrong... but even there behind the epithets it's ultimately about power maintenance). So perhaps Vinge doesn't HAVE to talk about race, because it's irrelevant to the class dichotomy he's building. (And yes, you can build that without talking about haves or have-nots-- look at the Indian caste system, for example.) As for sacrificing the personal for the convenient... Hm. I'll have to ruminate on this more, but I don't think that's NECESSARILY the binary we're dealing with for increasing the influence of technology. Or, at least, I'm not sure that it's technology on its own merits that's driving the change.
Clark -->Etlinger: (I had to remove the html for silent messaging because it was read as a tag, lol. I agree with your thought that Vinge is directly saying that there is a racial and economic divide for future technology in "Rainbows End." He says so pointedly in the Prologue: "Central Africa, beyond the scope of hobbyist surveillance:" and "in Central Africa and all the failed states at the edge of the modern world." And I had to remove the html for the end of a silent message because it was read as a tag.
I think that Vinge is primarily discussing what many would perceive to be the expanding middle class, and it's not that the lower classes don't exist, they are just not written about. There also seems to be some cultural taboo around people who don't wear (senior citizens for the most part) and so the middle classes have little to no reason to interact with or talk about the lower classes who are not "wearing."
I think the vocational students have access here in someways because one of the purposes of schooling is to provide access where access is otherwise not available. However, like you said, even in these "dumbhead" classes, all the students are wearing. A discussion of class structure seems to have been outside the scope of this novel. But, there seem to be hints.
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